


Rune Impracticalities

by Jalec



Category: Shadowhunters, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 21:11:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13349607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jalec/pseuds/Jalec
Summary: Alec has a problem – he, of course, only trusts Jace to help him. Jace offers an alternative to what Alec had in mind.





	Rune Impracticalities

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in my drafts. I don't know why I never published it, but here it is now! I hope you enjoy. This is based off Matthew Daddario's Alec, and Dominic Sherwood's Jace.

“Why does a Shadowhunter need to wax his chest?” Jace said.

He was sitting on the end of Alec’s bed, watching his _parabatai_ move haphazardly around the room, either moving things between dressers, reordering things that were already ordered, or doing something else decidedly Alec-like.

“Personal preference?” Alec responded indifferently, though if it had been someone other than Jace who had asked he probably wouldn’t have answered. Though, he wouldn’t have been in this situation – asking someone to help him with a task that was unusual… _intimate?_ – with anyone other than Jace.

“Are you doing this for someone? Is there someone new in your life you haven’t told me about? I thought I was your one and only, Alec, your handsome baggage for all eternity! This is—”

“No! There’s no-one.” Of course there wasn’t someone; there was Jace and there were duties. “Why would I wax my chest for someone else? Just stop talking – I hate saying ‘wax’ and ‘chest’ in the same sentence – and be helpful!”

Isabelle was out on a mission, and Alec had commandeered her waxing station. It looked complicated and dangerous (potentially more so than a vampire at dusk) sitting on his table making all sorts of venomous sounds. It also looked too small for what he hoped to accomplish.

“On second thought,” Jace said as he stood up, “I don’t think I want to be party to this. You can plaster yourself.”

Alec groaned and then quickly divulged, “I’m running out of skin for runes!” He huffed as something clattered on a dresser. “They’re all the way up my legs now…”

Jace had to think the comment over for a second, not too sure if Alec was making a ploy against him, but it didn’t take him too long to reconsider.

He laughed and said, “Of all the things I thought I’d hear a Shadowhunter complain about, I never thought ‘I can’t draw runes on my chest because my chest hair messes them up’ would be one of them.”

Alec had turned to face Jace. He pulled together the buttons on the Henley-style shirt, embarrassed and reddening slightly at how openly they were talking about this, at how  _Jace_ was talking about his body.

“That’s easy for someone who looks like you to say,” Alec said. “You’re all— You’re all…” he waved his hand around, then blurted out, “twinky!”

Jace’s interest was piqued – that was a description of him he’d never heard before (in neither a positive nor negative context).

“Twinky?” Jace said. Alec realised what he’d let slip, and he cursed the fact that New York’s Institute was one of the few that had internet access. “Twinky?” Jace repeated, indignant. “I’m not twinky.”

Alec would have been less surprised if Jace had known a word such as “pulchritude,” maybe even “onomatopoeia,” but not “twinky.” He wouldn’t have guessed that, even if the two of them had lived together for twenty lifetimes.

“We might be Shadowhunters, Alec, but we live in the twenty-first century. We have this thing… The— What’s it called? The internet? Someone with –” he gestured downwards – “like me is not ‘twinky.’”

“By the angel.” Alec put his hand up. “Please— Stop talking.” He wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh and smile (which he thought would have given away his curiosity at Jace’s knowledge) or cringe, so he ended up half-smiling somewhat like a vampire who’d smelt blood on a good-looking victim.

“You brought this up, _parabatai_ ,” Jace said defensively. “You wanted my help, and all I’m saying is that I like you just the way you are. And that you’re being very illogical.” Jace turned his head up as if conceding. “But I will help – for the sake of Shadowhunter practicality, of course – despite your being illogical.”

“I really don’t think you need to have an opinion on my hirsuteness, Jace.” Alec pouted for a second, with crossed-arms in an attempt to keep his shirt’s buttons close together, though his resolve was weakening, as if maybe what Jace had said was a cue to reconsider. “How, pray tell, am I being illogical? Do you have an alternative?”

“Maybe.” Jace patted his pockets, looking for his stele. “Do you know which runes you need?”

“Yes.”

“And you still have skin? That you can’t reach?”

Alec nodded hesitantly.

“Where?” Jace said.

“Back… Upper ribs… Back of my thighs.”

Alec was wary; because anyone who knew Jace knew he was devious by nature, but at least that meant nothing done alongside him was ever boring.

“I’ll draw them for you,” Jace offered.

“I don’t need you to do that if I do this,” Alec said, to test Jace’s resolve. The wax pot clicked.

“I hear that hurts. I won’t hurt you.”

“So does being stabbed by a demon’s pincer. And every time I need a new rune, you’ll have to draw it. That’s not very practical.”

“I don’t mind.” He cleared his throat. “Do you?”

Alec did, in a way. He wanted to be close to Jace, he wanted to touch Jace, and he wanted Jace to touch him, but despite the fact that Jace’s offer would accomplish this, at least partially, he was not entirely at ease. Maybe he had been misinterpreting.

“What?” Alec gave a half-laugh, trying to portray confidence. “You’re going to hike my shirt up in the middle of a mission and mark me?”

“I hardly think anyone would bat an eye. We’re _parabatai_ , after all… Aren’t we?” There was something in Jace’s voice, as if he had been caught out. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve drawn runes on you, nor you on me, in odd places.”

Jace sat himself down on the end of the bed, and Alec followed suit.

Jace was right; it wasn’t uncommon for _parabatai_ to draw runes on each other. And considering there was not meant to be anything going on between _parabatai_ – considering it was illegal – most Shadowhunters would choose to ignore what was right in front of their very eyes...

“I won't draw an _iratze_... I'll do the ones you don't need access to all the time. We'll move them, as they fade." Jace looked at him softly, the way a child might observe a candle flame. "If you want, of course."

Yes. He did. But that meant this would be ongoing process.

Alec’s hands had fallen away from his shirt, and were now resting on the bed. Jace looked down, and calloused fingers from years of training with swords and weapons of all sorts gently touched Alec’s.

“So –” Jace stood up quickly – “time for me to assist in this venture by draping hot liquids over you, rubbing, and then ripping? Or shall we stick with the sensible option? Yes, I thought so – so you're going to keep it! Good." He was trying to take control again, trying to be his regular in-charge Jace self. "Take your shirt off,” he said, the words almost getting caught in his throat, which made Alec smile. It was very unlike Jace, but Alec liked flustered Jace – Alec liked _endearing _Jace, and he felt keenly that he was legitimately the one person in the world Jace would ever be like that with.__

____

____

Alec stood up too, and was in close proximity to his _parabatai_ as a result. His nimble fingers started at the uppermost button, undoing it quickly. Jace was at just about the right height to see this face-on. His cheeks were red, and his stele was in his hand, but he was finicky, rolling it over and over. 

Alec slipped the fabric off his shoulders and discarded it on the bed to reveal tan skin and black hair. Jace moved around him, trying hard to keep his eyes on Alec’s back and control his breathing.

“Your ribs. And,” Jace confirmed, “you said your— Your legs too?”

Alec didn’t falter, he simply unbuttoned his pants and undid his fly and took them off as if everything were completely normal. He was keeping his eagerness under wraps (keeping his emotions in check was something he was good at), and wanted to see what Jace would do next, if he _could_ do anything, or if he'd fumble and drop the stele and collapse from timidness.

Alec laid himself down on the bed, arms out in front of him (making taut the skin over his ribs), back bared, and legs outstretched.

"Stamina is gone, I think. Start with that?" Alec said.

As Jace straddled the torso-down Alec’s legs, stele in hand, he realised that he could not draw particularly large runes on Alec’s thighs either, for they were also obstructed by hair, and not ideal given their width.

He would have to go higher, but if Alec's back was eventually covered in runes if they followed through with this idea, he would eventually have to go lower...

He would have to find many new places to mark Alec, to enjoy Alec, if they were to do this.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! And yes, while maybe it's not exactly a "realistic" situation, it sure is fun to think about. (As are butt-cheek runes!)


End file.
